Stephan Livera Podcast

Holding Bitcoin is not a financial plan. That is the starting point of Morgen Rochard's new book, Bitcoin Personal Finance, and of her return to the show. Bitcoin can fix the money, but it does not fix under-saving, spending habits or the money scripts people carry with them. Her book aims to help readers build a plan with Bitcoin as the core balance sheet asset rather than a token allocation.
Morgen is the founder of Origin Wealth Advisers and a financial planner who works with Bitcoin-holding clients. In her words, there are plenty of personal finance books and plenty of Bitcoin books, but none that combine the two to show people what to do once they own Bitcoin.
Stephan and Morgen discuss what Bitcoiners and the fiat world each get wrong, and matching assets to when the money is needed, using the example of a preschool fund put into Bitcoin near the top. They also cover how large a fiat emergency fund should be, and why forced selling tends to arrive with job losses and bear markets. She explains why most homes and renovations are consumption, why single rental properties often earn less than a REIT, and how leverage magnifies the damage when something goes wrong.
They also get into debt as a campfire that can become a wildfire, and the narrow case where a Bitcoin-backed loan makes sense. Morgen explains that borrowing to fund spending has sent some of her clients back to work. The conversation closes on spending-based retirement planning, tax planning versus tax preparation, charitable giving, trusts, and why she prefers educating children over restrictive trust rules.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro
00:21 — Why She Wrote Bitcoin Personal Finance
01:11 — Holding Bitcoin Isn't a Financial Plan
02:45 — What the Fiat World Gets Wrong
04:02 — Hot Trades vs Your Actual Goals
05:40 — Chasing Returns vs a 20% Savings Rate
08:23 — Match Assets to When You Need Them
11:31 — How Big a Fiat Emergency Fund?
15:52 — Is Your Home a Store of Value?
18:02 — Rentals vs REITs vs Bitcoin
19:31 — Leverage and Single-Property Risk
24:06 — Debt Is Like a Campfire
27:16 — When Bitcoin-Backed Loans Make Sense
30:05 — Spending-Based Retirement Planning
32:12 — Tax Planning Isn't Tax Preparation
35:09 — Trusts and Trusting Your Kids
36:58 — No One-Size-Fits-All Allocation

Links:
Morgen Rochard on X: https://x.com/MorgenRochard
Origin Wealth Advisers: https://www.originwa.com/
Bitcoin Personal Finance (book site): https://bitcoinpersonalfinancebook.com/
Bitcoin Personal Finance on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394394055

James Lavish explains why he expects a gradual print to turn into a big one, what weak Treasury auctions signal, and what he got wrong about Bitcoin this cycle.
Timestamps
00:00 — Intro
00:48 — Markets: Warsh, Oil and a Narrow Rally
04:22 — How Much Debt Will AI Need?
08:41 — Outgrowing the Debt: A Polite Fiction
10:50 — Brent at $108, 10-Year at 5.13%
13:44 — Weak Auctions and Who Buys Treasuries
15:54 — Oil Shock: Supply, Not Demand
18:03 — If CoreWeave Trips: The Downside Case
19:56 — How the Fed and Treasury Would Respond
24:15 — The Base Case: Growth and Nominal Inflation
28:49 — Big Print or Gradual Print?
32:58 — Gradual Until All Bets Are Off
34:07 — Why Faith in the Dollar Breaks Slowly
38:11 — What James Got Wrong This Cycle
39:54 — Decentralization and Politics as Hurdles
41:59 — JPMorgan's Shift and Career Risk
43:45 — Why Bitcoin Over AI?

Official Podcast Episode: https://stephanlivera.com/783
Alex Recouso argues that Bitcoin solved capital mobility but not human mobility: you can move money across borders without permission, yet you still need permission to move yourself. His answer is that everyone should think about a second passport before they need one, because, as he puts it, you can't buy insurance once the house is on fire.
Alex is co-founder and CEO of CitizenX. He says he discovered the idea of alternative citizenship at 14, and that understanding Bitcoin in 2020 convinced him it was the missing piece. CitizenX sells citizenship by investment programs and, by his account, advises governments, including El Salvador, so he is not a neutral observer.
He splits buyers in two: citizenship programs suit people with high liquidity and low mobility, while residency and naturalization suit people with high mobility and less capital. They cover the main tiers, from cheaper Plan B passports to Caribbean programs, Turkey, El Salvador and Argentina's newly announced program, and why he prefers donation routes to government-approved real estate.
The downsides get airtime too. Alex expects EU pressure to cost Caribbean programs their visa-free access or make them unattractive. He argues European rules can change overnight, citing Italy's flat tax and Spain's closed golden visa. And naturalization through residency is cheaper but never guaranteed. They close on AI's limits as an advisor, rising versus established countries, and compounding in a low-tax place.
Timestamps
00:00 — Intro

00:43 — Bitcoin Solved Capital, Not Human, Mobility

02:04 — Selling Citizenship: Countries Competing

05:14 — Buy or Earn: Liquidity vs Mobility

06:57 — Why Program Prices Rise and Fall

08:55 — Weak Passports vs Plan B Buyers

11:32 — Donation vs Real Estate Routes

13:35 — Three Tiers: Plan B, Caribbean, Outliers

17:06 — Argentina's Program: Costs and Country Risk

20:09 — EU Pressure and Schengen Risk

23:12 — What Countries Gain or Risk

25:52 — Beyond Visa-Free: Settlement Rights

28:43 — HENRYs, Urgency, and Sequencing

31:14 — Insurance Before the House Is on Fire

33:06 — Naturalization Is Cheaper but Not Guaranteed

37:00 — Changed Rules in Portugal, Italy, Spain

41:07 — UAE, Singapore and Citizenship Limits

42:49 — CitizenX vs Traditional Firms

47:08 — Can AI Replace Citizenship Advisors?

49:02 — Rising Countries: High Risk, High Reward

51:34 — Lower Taxes and Compounding

Links: 
https://x.com/recouso

https://x.com/CitizenX

https://citizenx.com/

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Prashanth Chandrashekar argues that much of Europe's debanking comes down to how banks score transfers. Money arriving from a crypto exchange's account is treated as a higher-risk third-party payment, while a transfer between two accounts in your own name passes with far fewer flags. Bringin's answer is a named virtual IBAN for each customer, which he says lowers the risk of being debanked rather than removing it.
Prashanth, who is from India, started Bringin after moving to Estonia holding Bitcoin and finding he couldn't easily spend it. He now runs the company's consumer app and its new business accounts.
They cover MiCA's licensing reset, which by his figures left only about 30% of earlier firms licensed but lets the survivors passport across the EU; accounts closed without explanation under tipping-off rules; and how named IBANs differ from the deposit IBANs exchanges hand out. On the consumer wallet, built on Spark, he is direct about the trade-offs: operators are mostly centralized and can see payments, though they cannot move funds alone.
On Bringin for Business, he describes pilot users such as mining-rig sellers paying suppliers abroad, plus stablecoin support and accounting exports. The custody model differs from the consumer app: keys sit in a hosted Turnkey enclave with spending policies, Bringin holds an extra key in multi-director setups, seed export is discouraged, and ownership changes run through Bringin's backend. Third-party euro payments were promised within days of recording, and corporate cards are not yet available.
Disclosure: Stephan is a small investor in and advisor to Bringin.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro
00:37 — MiCA: Costly but Passportable
03:28 — Debanking: Why Banks Block Exchange Flows
07:04 — Named vIBANs vs Exchange Deposit IBANs
11:25 — Spark Self-Custody and Its Trust Trade-offs
13:03 — Why Banks Are Harder on Businesses
15:22 — Who Joined the Business Pilot
18:08 — Beyond Debanking: Accounting Headaches
20:31 — Business Keys in Turnkey Enclaves
24:53 — Key Rotation Runs Through Bringin's Backend
26:24 — Roadmap: Third-Party Payments, No Cards Yet
30:45 — Next Customers: Stablecoins and Agents
33:31 — Regulation Outlook: DAC8 and Data Risk
34:39 — AI Agents, MCP, and Payments
Links: 
https://x.com/prashanthc123

https://x.com/bringinxyz

https://bringin.app/business

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Setzeus argues that 90% of people will never properly use seed phrases and hardware wallets, and that services like Privy and Turnkey, which split a key behind an email or phone login, are a good-enough floor for self-custody. Stephan pushes back on what that gives up: verifiability, portability across devices, and a degree of vendor lock-in.
Setzeus (Jesus Najera) runs SetDev, a Bitcoin L2 and metaprotocol engineering and security shop whose biggest client has been Stacks. He built BitScript and founded Cofund, a cross-chain multisig web app aimed at families, fiduciaries, and founders.
The conversation opens on the recent run of hacks, including the Coldcard incident, and his view that the cryptography is not broken but AI has made attacks on everything around it cheaper. They cover Justin Drake's "bunker mode" post, why Bitcoin builders get nerd-sniped by technology over product, why multisig adoption remains small, and whether ETFs are better than nothing for people who won't self-custody.
On Cofund itself, Setzeus explains spending policies built from signer sets, thresholds, and rules on Taproot script paths. He is plain about the limits: on Bitcoin only the signer set is enforced on-chain, spend caps rely on the client without covenants, rotating a signer means moving funds to a new set, and the free tier charges a 1% transaction fee.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro
00:37 — From SetDev's L2 Work to Multisig
03:20 — After the Coldcard Hack: Why Self-Custody?
07:56 — Justin Drake's Bunker Mode and ECDSA
10:13 — Are Bitcoiners Bad at Building Products?
15:59 — Seed Phrases vs Privy-Style Key Sharding
20:25 — Trade-offs: Verifiability and Lock-In
25:35 — Recommending Self-Custody After Hacks
30:40 — Families, Fiduciaries, and Founders
34:25 — Spending Policies via Taproot Script Paths
37:24 — Limit: Bitcoin Spend Caps Not On-Chain
39:59 — Key Rotation Means Moving Funds
41:11 — Cofund Pricing and Fees
42:03 — Thesis: Multisig Becomes Joint Accounts
Links: 
https://x.com/getcofund

https://x.com/setzeus

https://getcofund.com/

Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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